Disclaimer: Guys you know that this is all done for comedic shock value. I don’t read hate mail and I am not targeting anyone specifically.

You know what gets on my nerves?

Avril Lavigne

People who allow their annoying ringtone to keep going while they debate on whether or not to answer

Self-checkout lanes

Generic fortune cookie revelations

So what makes all of that bearable in comparison? What really gets on my last damn nerve?? Your ex. No, not the stuff you tried at a party in college once. I am talking about your ex-boyfriend. Whoever he is: I. can’t. stand. him.

Kid you not: this weekend—and I’m defining that as when I left work early on Friday through when I stumbled in on Monday—no less than four of my friends had close encounters of the socially uncomfortable variety with their exes.

Now, in the past, I was more guilty of “ex relapse” than OJ was of offing his wife. But alas, if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit. And so after careful review of the drunk texts I received—several from two out of four of the above-referenced friends—I’ve decided to offer my unsolicited advice. And while I realize I’m probably better qualified to be a rocket scientist than dispense relationship advice, I can name at least ten people on my FaceBook who have recently used their mattress as an emotional time machine. (Don’t worry, I’m not actually going to call any of them out on here!)

Here’s the thing: you started out friends… It was cool but it was all—and fill in the blank here:

Completely obliterated when he cheated on you with a friend, co-worker, or farm animal

A hott mess from drunken start to bitter end

Comparable to an afternoon picnic with Ike Turner

A financial blur that ended with him taking everything and you borrowing money to eat off the Dollar Menu

Worse than Helen Keller playing golf (and you know I’ve been waiting forever to use that line)

Uglier than a box of animal crackers with no heads

Like a bathroom stall at a Whitney Houston concert

If I had a dollar for every time one of my friends went back to their exes, I’d have enough money to pay for the drinks they need after it all falls apart. Remember Roxette? “It must have been love… but it’s over now“. She did not say, “It must have been love… so I keep going back to him every time one of us gets drunk, depressed, or nostalgic.”

So why the hell do people continue to go back?! Battered Wives Syndrome? Traumatic amnesia? Just to spite me? If you see your ex, and have the urge to burst into a Journey or REO Speedwagon song, I would rather you drunk dial me and ask for a friendly reminder for why the two of you didn’t work out… than you call me two days later upset because it didn’t work out—again.

But it’s not going to work like that, is it? We are all inevitably stuck in this vicious, endless cycle of rinse and repeat, aren’t we? If not directly, with our own ex, than in helpless watching the people we care about subject themselves to being hurt over and over. Like running through a thunderstorm with a lightning rod.

Wouldn’t it be better if we left the past some place inaccessible… like in another state?